When Gibb’s Hundred Brewing opened at its West Lewis Street location in downtown Greensboro, it marked the beginning of a major shift in the neighborhood that’s evolved considerably in the last three years. But now, the brewery is relocating.
Co-owner Mark Gibb confirmed that Gibb’s Hundred will be relocating to State Street sometime in the next six months.
Gibb said they bought a building at 504 State St. across from La Bamba restaurant that’s actually set up as a private tennis court. The steel building with a concrete floor will make the brewery’s growing production easier, Gibb said, adding that the small size of their current space made a move inevitable.
In addition to a taproom, they intend to create an outdoor beer garden, “which is something we just can’t have in this space here now,” Gibb said.
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Gibb’s Hundred operates a 15-barrel brewhouse, and there’s still plenty of capacity in their current brew system, he said. But they need more fermentation tanks — that’s where most breweries experience a bottleneck, Gibb said. And as the brewery ramps up its canning operation, it will need more storage space, too.
Not dissimilar from West Lewis Street, Greensboro’s State Street is experiencing a commercial rebirth. Revitalization of the adjacent Golden Gate Shopping Center is well underway thanks to the likes of the Green Bean, Melt Kitchen & Bar, ZC Hawaiian BBQ and Air Fun Trampoline Park in particular.
And on State Street, Vida Pour Tea and high-end, yoga-centric chain Lululemon are indicators of the street’s new era. It’s a short street, running between North Elm and North Church streets, and is actually incredibly close to Revolution Mill (the home of the new Natty Greene’s), at least as the crow flies. But otherwise, there are no other bars in the immediate area.
Gibb said there isn’t a new tenant lined up yet for their current location. Developer Andy Zimmerman, who owns the Lewis Street building, said they are in negotiations for letting the brewery out of its lease — there are almost two years left on it, he said.
“I’m grateful that he took the risk at the beginning to locate on Lewis Street, and now Lewis Street has built up to be what I think might be the entertainment district of downtown,” Zimmerman said. “I’m excited for Mark. He obviously feels like this move will be better for his business. If we can come to an agreement for getting him out of the lease, I’m excited for what else could go in there.”
Zimmerman would not offer details on what sort of business might fill the void.
Gibb’s Hundred Brewing celebrates its third anniversary this weekend at its current location.
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The most successful ones usually leave downtown or buy a building of their own.
One of the charms of McAdoo Heights, the name of the neighborhood Gibbs is moving into, has been that its collection of mill houses sit on too many lots to make them easily bought up at once, flattened, and rebuilt as … well, whatever our developer buddies want. The weird shack called a private tennis court in your article usually has trash and overgrown weeds and trees around it; its tennis playing owner obviously doesn’t think much the neighborhood. The developers who will benefit most will be Alliance, which has been sitting on the shops on State Street forever, often letting them sit empty, and the Revolution Mill people. A few years back Alliance proposed a very large apartment complex to replace the shops but with the Great Recession’s effects still lingering, halted the effort. For those who know the neighborhood the bigger questions were about where all the apartment/condo dwellers would park and the huge traffic impact they’d make on McAdoo. In the meantime the new residents of Revolution find themselves in the “unfashionable” 27405 zip code area, as will Gibbs. They will probably find shopping at Compare supermarket on Bessemer intolerable, so I imagine my Food Lion at Golden Gate will begin to offer a wider array of cheeses and beers, and maybe a salad bar. McAdoo Heights, a very walkable neighborhood, sits exactly between Irving Park and the east side of town, bounded by Cornwallis on its north end and the almost unknown and unused Audubon Natural Area to the south. Above all, McAdoo is an affordable neighborhood, much like the Cone Community and Rosewood neighborhoods further east, one rarely visited by City Council members, although Zach Metheny, Outling’s predecessor, would once in a while drop into the now gone Carolina Coffee Shop. Developers and their Council member buddies love building projects —visible signs they’re doing things (Nancy Vaughan: “Look around. You see development all over the city.”) but what many in the our city really need are affordable housing choices.